Comments on: Go Greener – Offset Your Electricity!

By: HomeEnergyTv

HomeEnergyTv — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 20:06:30 +0000

Great site you have here! Hopefully other towns and cities will begin to offer programs such as this, it really is a small price to pay when you look at the big picture. HomeEnergyTvs last blog post..Major discovery by MIT researchers plans to unleash a new genre of Solar Energy

By: Offsetting My Electricity With Wind Power Update | Nature Deva

Offsetting My Electricity With Wind Power Update | Nature Deva — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:13:22 +0000

[...] on what it was like this summer having switched over to 100% wind power. I wrote back in June a detailed post about how we decided that instead of paying just an extra $7.50/mo for buying a block of partial [...]

By: Nature Deva

Nature Deva — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:55:55 +0000

Thanks for the tip, Mike!

I’m glad that where I am buying renewable energy from (my power co) they are buying mainly wind power from the wind farm in Medicine Bow, WY.

By: Mike Jackson

Mike Jackson — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:09:00 +0000

Hi! Just came across your great post on RECs. I work for a San Francisco based REC vendor named Village Green Energy. I would just add one thing to your post – there is a big difference which states you purchase your RECs from.

In some states the electric companies are required to be a certain percent renewable by a certain year. In California, it’s 20% by 2010. The electric companies meet this goal by buying RECs. So if you buy California RECs, the California electric companies need to go out and build new capacity to replace the RECs you’ve purchased as a voluntary customer. If you do the same thing in say Nebraska (which doesn’t have the law) the local electric companies don’t need to replace your purchase, so very little difference is made.

This is the big secret in the REC world – as you might guess, RECs from Nebraska are cheaper, so many vendors source from these states. And Green-e doesn’t make the distinction either.

Village Green is basing its business model off of only buying RECs from these states where it makes a difference. If you want to learn more, check out: http://www.villagegreenenergy.com/real-green-power.

Mike